UNews - spokesperson

Meeting of the Minds Conference

trevor.kenney — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:35:28 +0000

What is genetic fingerprinting? Why do bears wear pants? Will a person change their risky behaviour after exposure to frightening information? What is voluntourism, and how can it affect developing countries? Is there a more efficient way to distribute wireless services? Who are the people asking all of these questions, anyway?

Join the best and brightest undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral researchers at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge for a Meeting of the Minds and get answers to these –and more – questions on Saturday, Mar. 10 in Markin Hall.

The Meeting of the Minds Conference, hosted by the U of L Graduate Students' Association and sponsored by the School of Graduate Studies, is geared to bring research to an external community audience, and all presentations are open to the general public and free to attend.

The day concludes with a reception and poster presentation display at 5 p.m., a cocktail dinner and a 7 p.m. talk by pioneering U of L neuroscience researcher Dr. Bryan Kolb.

Meeting of the Minds promises to deliver a surprising and educational day of more than 30 talks and poster presentations which represent the wide variety of research taking place on campus at the undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral level. This is the sixth annual event of its type on campus.

"It is extremely important as a researcher to be able to present your work in a way that is understandable to an external audience," says spokesperson Samantha Dawson. We are looking at this event as a way to not only explain what we do, but to gain experience in public presentation skills and networking."

With more than 500 people conducting research and taking graduate studies at the U of L, Dawson says the opportunity to learn from each other is also extremely valuable.

"We don't have time to drop into someone else's lab and ask them what they are up to, so our event also gives us a chance to learn even more about what our colleagues are working on," she says. "We hope that this sparks collaboration between people who might not have previously thought of working together."

Dawson says that conference organizers have worked hard to encourage participation from all areas of campus.

"We had people from different faculties review papers – for example, a biological sciences presentation might have been reviewed by someone from fine arts or management, and vice versa. This ensured that there was a good level of external review and requests for clarity. If the reviewer didn't understand it, it was unlikely a broader community audience would understand it."

This year's conference promises to be the largest to date.

"With the Meeting of the Minds theme and external focus, hopefully we will draw more people to campus to learn about graduate studies and the diversity of work taking place here," says Dawson.

For a complete list of presentations, check the Notice Board.

Auditions for talent show, Mar. 5-6

trevor.kenney — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:56:28 +0000

If you can sing, dance, play an instrument, do magic, think you're funny or have some other special talent that the community might like to know about (or all of the above) the student organizers of the, Lethbridge Has Talent, Kids Help Phone fundraiser want to hear from you.

Winners will be awarded cash: $500 for first place, $250 for second place, and $100 for third place.

A project of the 2011 Integrated Management Experience class at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, "Lethbridge Has Talent" aims to showcase the best of local talent for a good cause – Kids Help Phone.

"This is a unique way for the community to show its support for talent – not only for the people who participate in our event, but the talented people at Kids Help Phone who put in long hours to help kids from our region," said Karla Colenutt, the group spokesperson.

"We are hopeful that this event can be carried on by Kids Help Phone in the future."

Auditions take place March 5 and March 6 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day at the Lethbridge Lodge Hotel and Conference Centre, 320 Scenic Drive S.

The finale performances take place Saturday, March 26, 2011 at the 1st Choice Savings Centre for Sport and Wellness on the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge campus.

Parking is FREE.

Doors open at 5:30 p.m. Program begins at 6 p.m. Admission: Students/seniors/kids over 6, $5; Adults (over 17), $10; Family Pass (three or more) $20. Silent Auction and draws available.

Celebrating National Aboriginal Day

trevor.kenney — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 17:44:14 +0000

A large collection of interviews about Blackfoot culture and traditional dances, compiled by a pair of ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers and their colleagues, will return to the Blackfoot (Kainai) community in a most un-traditional way – on DVDs, CDs, and with a 'digital deposit' to the Blackfoot Digital Library at Red Crow College.

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers Lisa Doolittle (theatre arts) and Troy Emery Twigg (Native American studies), along with Anne Flynn (kinesiology) from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary and their colleagues, will be handing back to the community all the materials generated by their five-year-long research project which investigated the various forms of Blackfoot dance from the perspective of several elders and young people in Southern Alberta Blackfoot communities.

An archival image of a traditional Blackfoot pow wow. Courtesy Glenbow Museum.

The ceremony will take place Monday, June 21 to coincide with National Aboriginal Day.

"Traditionally, when elders passed on knowledge, it was the duty of the learner to ensure it would benefit the whole community and be returned to the community," says Emery Twigg. "This very contemporary digital format is a new way of transferring ancient knowledge."

Beginning with the criminalization of indigenous dances, such as sun dances and give-away ceremonies, which were made illegal through changes to Canada's Indian Act in the late 1800s, the researchers looked at a wide range of dance practices and collected in-depth information through interviews with selected elders and young people.

"To us as outsiders, the resilience of this community in the face of multiple assaults on their way of life is most striking, and that resilience is powerfully expressed in the unbroken practice of dance ceremonies, and in the immense popularity of dance competitions and in contemporary artistic expression," says Doolittle.

If the overall aim of the project is to stimulate conversation and increase research about dance and related aspects of Blackfoot life over the past century, opening the collection of materials up to the worldwide community puts a whole new perspective on the traditional method of transferring knowledge, according to a Red Crow College spokesperson.

"If this sort of transfer were to become a trend, there would be far less strain in relationships between native communities and universities and other institutions like museums," says Ryan Heavy Head, who has been instrumental in initiating and managing the digital library.

"The collaboration of Red Crow College and the Kainai Studies/Blackfoot Digital Library initiative enables wide distribution, allowing others to see the materials for themselves, and reinterpret and reuse them."

Local community members, teachers, international scholars and any interested members of the public will be able to easily access videos, sound recordings and print materials through the Blackfoot Digital Library.

The materials are also accessible through the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Library web pages through a link to the Blackfoot Digital Library. Red Crow College partnered with the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Library to establish the Blackfoot Digital Library.

Researchers Doolittle and Flynn, who titled their project "Blackfoot Dance History: Selected Perspectives," investigated how dancing affects identity and influences public policies both within communities and in cross-cultural situations. They have presented aspects of this research at international conferences in the UK, the United States and Canada, and, along with Emery Twigg, will be featured plenary speakers at the International Conference of the American Society for Theatre Research in Seattle in November.

The project is part of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council–funded investigation into dance and multiculturalism in Canada, and has received additional funding from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Research Fund and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Scholars program.

To view a brief video clip of elders speaking about Blackfoot dance, follow this link.

James presents Sinixt struggle

trevor.kenney — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:00:15 +0000

The plight of the Sinixt Nation, or Arrow Lakes People, will be examined by spokesperson Marilyn James at a presentation this afternoon in TH241.

Forced Extinction: The Story of the Sinixt Nation delves into their struggle against Canada, colonialism and extinction. Presented by James, who works part time for Selkirk College as an aboriginal advisor, the talk begins at 12:15 p.m. and is open to everyone.

The Sinixt are a tribe of the Interior Salish peoples. They share a common linguistic connection to the Interior Salish but are dialectically distinct. The Sinixt were declared extinct by the federal government of Canada in 1956 through a Federal Order in Council. The Sinixt have occupied a site at Vallican, BC since 1988 and have remained committed to cultural and environmental work since that time as community members within their traditional territory. Cultural work has consisted of the repatriation of ancestral remains, conducting annual ceremonies, gathering local landscape foods and upholding cultural responsibilities for the traditional territory and all resources and members held therein.

James has developed indigenized curriculum sets for local school districts and is featured online in a partnership with school district #79.

She sits on many boards and committees dedicated to community services and education, and holds a bachelor of arts degree from Evergreen State College and a master of education from Simon Fraser ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. James is also the appointed spokesperson of Sinixt Nation and a board member for Sinixt Nation Society.

This event is presented by the Lethbridge Public Interest Research Group.

Student speakers take the challenge

trevor.kenney — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:04:08 +0000

The discourse was lively, the questions pointed and the answers unscripted – just what you'd want out of a public debate.

The second incarnation of the now annual Student Speaker Challenge kicked off in early January as a field of eight students began quarter-final rounds en route to determining a champion in March. For participants James Falconer and Selin Bilgin, the challenge serves as an opportunity to engage in a timeless and pure form of education.

"It's the old style, classic Greek conception of the university," says Falconer, a fourth-year sociology major. "The stadium, the discourse, the back-and-forth dialectic, that's what I thrive on and this is a wonderful example."

This year's question, "What is the value of post-secondary education to the world?" is especially relevant to students and attracted Bilgin, a first-year education student, to the competition.

"I know that there is a prize for the winner but more than anything, I wanted to do it for my personal experience," says Bilgin. "I do want to be a teacher so I have to get used to talking in front of a bunch of people, and it's a topic I care about and something I knew I could talk about."

The Student Speaker Challenge is a collaboration of the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA), the Lethbridge Public Interest Research Group (LPIRG), and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Students' Union (ULSU), with support from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge.

"We've been trying to make inroads on campus for a few years now and this idea, having a speaker challenge, works for us because it involves students and will hopefully attract some attention to what SACPA does in the city," says spokesperson Knud Petersen.

The format is simple, pitting two speakers against one another as they present their views on a predetermined topic. Each participant is given 15 minutes to speak, after which they answer questions from both the audience and the three-person judging panel. Following both presentations, the judges vote on who prevails and advances to the next round. A $500 award goes to the eventual champion, with $300 and $100 awards handed out to the second and third place finishers respectively.

"It's great to see off campus groups like SACPA join on campus organizations like LPIRG and the ULSU in presenting this because we all are interested in educating the public on important policy issues," says ULSU Vice-President Academic Alex Masse. "We do it much better collaboratively than we would be able to alone."

Falconer defeated Bilgin in their quarter-final matchup but she was roundly praised for taking on such a daunting task in just her second semester of post-secondary study.

"It was definitely tough and a little scary, especially when you make a mistake," says Bilgin. "I learned that the people here are very supportive. When I looked out I could see smiling faces, and they were paying attention to me, so that made me a lot more comfortable. It was definitely a great experience."

Masse says the challenge benefits everyone who takes part, including the audience.

"It's a great learning experience. I know I learn a few things from every speaker I hear because they present arguments I hadn't thought of before."

The challenge continues through to the Mar. 9 final at Andy's Place. Check the Notice Board for session dates and times.

UNews - spokesperson

Meeting of the Minds Conference

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